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Talk:Girls und Panzer Timeline/@comment-36560626-20180812152525/@comment-36560626-20180812190728
Well, carp. Sometimes I can be such a dumb chicka... I think my worry is actually correct, but only to a certain extent. Please bear with me for a moment and double check me on this. Alright. We do know that Erika and Miho are the same year. That's pointed out consistantly throughout both the anime and the various manga offshoots. As Fox pointed out, Erika's Pride takes place while she's in Primary (elementary) School. In fact, in chapter 1 of Erika's Pride we see a panel showing the sign and front gate of the school, Hitoyoshi Municple Elementary School. While there she is inducted into a youth program associated with Kuromine. The recruitment pamphlet she is handed for the program is (in translation) titled "Kuromine Academy Associated Senshado Youth Team Recruitment". Now, if Kuromine is only a high school it would make sense that they would start their efforts at recruitment during middle school. Aiming at elementary students is a very long term investment. In fact, by the time the student would enter high school, a recruitment plan this long term would basically have been spending on the student for a quarter of the student's life! I could be wrong, but that feels like a stretch to me. However, if Kuromine is an ESCALATOR SCHOOL, then that means it has a middle school, high school, AND college. And in Phase Erika, the first speech the new students get includes an admonition that "Kuromine's Women's COLLEGE has traditions" and that the new students had better not embarrass those traditions. But back to Erika's Pride. On the first day she encounters Maho, who is also a member of the youth program. This suggests to me that Maho is also still a grade schooler. Now, we know that Maho is a year older than Miho, which means she's a year older than Erika. (This is reinforced by Das Finale, as Erika is Maho's successor after Maho goes off to college.) *IF* these suppositions are correct, then that means Erika's Pride actually takes place while Erika and Miho are fourth years in elementary, a year before the events of Little Army (when Maho is now a junior high student). This is reinforced in Phase Erika. In chapter 1 we see the same uniforms being worn as Kuromine wears in GuP. EXCEPT FOR MAARU RIN, the then vice commander of the team. I want you to look at her uniform: Now, let's go over and look at Little Army. In Little Army we see several scenes of Maho in uniform. Both during her match against Miho and during the flashbacks where she is shown shooting the German team flag tank, she has this uniform on: And then in Erika's Pride? The advisor for the program wears the exact same uniform. So, if we take my above proposed timeline and plug these things in, what we see is a Kuromine recruitment program aimed at grade schoolers in which the older advisor is wearing a specific uniform. Then, a year (?) later, Maho wearing the exact same uniform during a match where she is a middle school 1st year. And a year after that, when Erika and Miho are now middle schoolers, the initial vice commander (Marru) has that exact same uniform yet again. It's not absolute proof, but this says to me that Kuromine is an escalator school that has no elementary, but does have a middle school in addition to having the high school and the women's college. Since we know Maho is in her first year of middle school and Miho (and thus Erika) are in their last year of elementary during the events of Little Army, and that Maho is a 3rd year in high school while Miho and Erika are 2nd years this means we KNOW that Little Army is Year -6, just as is shown on the timeline above. But, given the other suppositions above, that means our sequence of story events is now Year -7: Erika's Pride ~ Year -6: Little Army ~ Year -5: Phase Erika chapters 1-4. The Year -6 supposition lines up perfectly with the timeline above. BUT! Does this mean that Phase Erika is not, as is shown in the timeline above, Year -1? No. And here's why. After the end of chapter four of Phase Erika, where Miho defeats Erika (despite not being sure she wanted to win), we go on to chapter five. Chapter five opens with Director General Tsuji (who we know by context heads the Senshado Federation) declaring that Kuromini's tenth consecutive national championship is pretty much a done deal. We KNOW that Kuromine lost that tenth championship in Year -1. Further, chapter 11 specifically mentions the team training for that match immediately after their fight against Jatkosota, while chapter 12 shows the aftermath of the loss in the championship. So that means 5-12 HAVE to be Year -1. But what about the gap between chapter 4 and chapter 5? *IF* I am correct, and the translations that I initially thought were a mistake on the part of the translators are NOT mistakes, we are missing Miho and Erika's entire 2nd and 3rd years of middle school. Is that possible? Well, two more images imply exactly that. Compare Erika at the end of chapter four with how she looks at the start of chapter five: She's gone from big, baby faced eyes to narrow adult eyes. Her face has narrowed. Her hair has grown from the top of her shoulders to about the height of her nipples. And speaking of, she's gone from an A cup (maybe) to a D. Trust me, boys, you DON'T do that in a day, or even a month. Erika has clearly gone from early adolescence to mid/late adolescence in the space of ten pages. So either I am REALLY, REALLY missing some important facts, or the lines that I thought were mistranslations are, in fact, accurate, and the first third of Phase Erika takes place thee years earlier than the timeline above shows. Please, PLEASE point out where I'm clearly wrong, because this is really bugging my anal retentive little tushy. EDIT: And as I was writing this, Fox preempted me and pointed out some of the same things. I feel so, so relieved!